FILM REVIEW

By CARYN JAMES

Published: October 13, 1995

"God help me, Hester, I love thee!" declares the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, that passionate, skinny-dipping Puritan. "God help me, I love thee, too!" pants Hester Prynne, before melting into his arms, only to break away abruptly from their first kiss. "Nay! We could be hanged for this," she realizes. Hanging, in this case, is no deterrent. Hester and Arthur, played by Demi Moore and Gary Oldman as if they were in "The Red Shoe Diaries" instead of "The Scarlet Letter," are soon rolling around the barn on a pile of grain.

The director, Roland Joffe, should have just called his new movie "Puritans in Lust," labeled it a comedy and gotten it over with. There is plenty of room for interpretation in Hawthorne's novel, but a movie version should never be this goofy. "The Scarlet Letter" is unintentionally funnier than most comedies on screen.

Hawthorne gave us Dimmesdale, a minister guilt-ridden over his affair with Hester, yet too cowardly to acknowledge that he is the father of her child. Mr. Oldman's Dimmesdale is a hot-blooded hero and also kind to Indians.

Hawthorne gave us Hester, a strong-willed woman of conscience whose husband disappeared long ago. Forced to wear a scarlet "A" for "adultery," she will not reveal the name of her child's father. The novel's Hester privately believes she and Arthur will be together in heaven. Ms. Moore's Hester craves more immediate satisfactions.

She arrives in Salem from the Old World, resplendent in lace and an elegant black hat, with a boatload of furniture that includes a wooden "bathing tub." One of the colonists, undoubtedly smelly, comments that she must be French to own such an object. Any moviegoer could have told that colonist that where there is a bathing tub there must be a nude bathing scene. This "Scarlet Letter" has two: one featuring Hester, one featuring a brand-new character, a loyal black servant referred to as "poor, mute Mituba."

If you have heard anything about this film, you probably know the film makers have added a happy ending. As it turns out, they have also changed the beginning, the middle and the very essence of the book. That's O.K. The problem is not that the novel was changed, but that it was changed to something so trashy and nonsensical. (The people involved include the screenwriter, Douglas Day Stewart, who also wrote "An Officer and a Gentleman"; that would explain a lot. Mr. Joffe is known for his high seriousness in films like "The Killing Fields" and "City of Joy"; that makes you scratch your head.)

The film takes a full hour to arrive at the first scene of the novel, with Hester on the scaffold wearing the scarlet "A," and this early part is a hoot. Hester is a proto-feminist and a free spirit. She happens to be frolicking in the woods, a wreath of flowers in her loosened hair, when she spies a man swimming nude nearby. Imagine her surprise when she arrives at church later that day and recognizes that her kindred spirit is none other than the minister.

Theirs, of course, is lust at first sight, which allows Mr. Joffe to concoct one of the most ludicrous sex scenes ever. He intercuts glimpses of Hester and Arthur in the grain (Her hand clutches the grain! She's in ecstasy!) with scenes of Mituba in the bathing tub and a little red bird that fills the screen often, for no apparent reason.

When Hester bravely receives the letter A and makes Arthur promise to shut up (no point in both of them suffering), the hilarity dies down. The film becomes dull, even though the film makers try hard to turn this into an action-adventure story. They throw in witch hunts and Indian attacks.

There is Hester's loony long-lost husband, Roger Chillingworth (Robert Duvall), who has been set free by his Indian captors because he has become too weird for them, dancing around the campfire with a dead deer on his head.

"The Scarlet Letter" picks up its comic tone again in the last 15 minutes.

Of course, if you've read the book you won't know the ending. Let's just say that Indians with flaming arrows come to the rescue. They manage to keep a straight face, which is more than anyone in the audience will be able to do. THE SCARLET LETTER Directed by Roland Joffe; written by Douglas Day Stewart, based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne; director of photography, Alex Thomson; edited by Thom Noble; music by John Barry; production designer, Roy Walker; produced by Andrew G. Vajna and Mr. Joffe; released by Hollywood Pictures. Running time: 135 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: Demi Moore (Hester Prynne), Gary Oldman (the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale), Robert Duvall (Roger Chillingworth) and Lisa Jolliff-Andoh (Mituba).